


where we built our home there once was a cathedral

by helludic



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, Extended Metaphors, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nihlus is fucked up and full of insecurities, Pain, Saren is tired, Unresolved Romantic Tension, basically poetry but not in verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 22:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20460755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helludic/pseuds/helludic
Summary: There is no blood trailing down Nihlus’ back. No sharpened talons insistently retracing their steps, slicing deeper into exposed flesh. Carving canyons that won’t erode in his lifetime. There are no teeth poised to tear skin and flesh away from his throat should he step too far, pull too close. Saren is quiet, his touch barely there. It fills Nihlus with so much anger, so much fury, that after five months of not a word the fucking bastard doesn’t even care to take his own pleasure from him!





	where we built our home there once was a cathedral

**Author's Note:**

> After much consideration whether I should give this all a go, here is the first fic I've written.
> 
> Many, many thanks to the lovely [Smehur](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Smehur) (whose work is endlessly inspiring and has heavily influenced my personal canon of these two) for their support and brilliant editing. Any remaining mistakes and other oddities are my own.

They trudge up the stairs to Saren’s cabin, slow and uncoordinated not in exhaustion - the tactile memory of their shared missions always seems to evaporate in one another’s grasp - but in the too tight weave of talons and spurs and fluttering mandibles. Did Saren attempt to… kiss him? Nihlus is not paying attention, lost as he is in the sound and smell of Saren. But no, probably not, Saren doesn’t  _ do _ that. And it doesn’t matter, not when at long last Nihlus has him right here and  _ he _ can kiss him all he wants.

They scramble through the door, the backs of Saren’s knees hit the side of the bed and Nihlus pushes, growls, climbs on top of the white body waiting beneath, ready to reconquer territory too many months stolen. Then he stops. There is a weight pressing on his chest, one of confusion and not-quite-surprise. They rarely take their games up here. The stained sofa, the matted rug in the impromptu lounge, Nihlus’ bed and every worktop in their -  _ their -  _ little kitchen, even the stovetop still too hot for comfort, then the shower, the storage cupboard too small to fit both of their bodies - yet they make it work,  _ they always somehow make it work  _ -, against the entry hatch when they’ve spent entirely too long apart. Everywhere, every surface of the ship Nihlus has grown to call home. But not here. Not in Saren’s  _ sanctuary _ . It’s disorienting, the bulkheads slope all wrong, it kicks out the ground from underneath his feet. For a moment Nihlus feels spaced, as if his entire world’s suddenly turned upside down, as if his hard earned kingdom has been uplifted and scrambled and thrown hastily onto a whole ‘nother continent.  _ But no, not hastily.  _ Saren does not do hasty. Saren meticulously arranges every note of his symphonies.

Symphonies of pain, at this very moment. Unlike his former mentor, Nihlus  _ does _ do hasty. He does it so often he’s turned it into his own art form. He’s slid into Saren without preamble, without preparation, and it strikes him at the sound that Saren is not  _ nearly _ as eager as he is. Figures. Whereas for Nihlus their distance has always served to stoke the fire ( _ like an indomitable storm he can’t help inching ever closer to _ ), for Saren it seems to have been only quiet waters dousing the flames. Each thrust gifts him only whispered grunts.

But Saren does not ask him to stop. He wraps his graceful legs around Nihlus’ waist - Nihlus has always thought those are the damn hottest legs in the galaxy, by virtue of his shame always turning his eyes down and away from the icy glare - and he paws at his back, chin tucked into his cowl and face scrunched tight in discomfort. There was a time Saren relished the pain, demanded the punishment, with Nihlus always keen to provide whatever he needed,  _ anything _ . But Nihlus wonders now if that has changed? But of course not, of course not–  _ You stupid, stupid fool,  _ his thoughts admonish with Saren’s smug voice.

There is no blood trailing down Nihlus’ back. No sharpened talons insistently retracing their steps, slicing deeper into exposed flesh. Carving canyons that won’t erode in his lifetime. There are no teeth poised to tear skin and flesh away from his throat should he step too far, pull too close. Saren is quiet, his touch barely there. It fills Nihlus with so much  _ anger _ , so much fury, that after five months of not a word the fucking bastard doesn’t even  _ care _ to take his own pleasure from him! Could have spent the evening filing mission reports for all the damn difference Nihlus’ presence makes.  _ The rage burns _ .

It spurs him on, urges him to thrust faster, rougher; he’s grunting and growling as he shoves his blunt talons into Saren’s tough flesh hard enough to bleed him. The fucking asshole is _manipulating_ _you_, a different voice now screams in his head - it’s his own voice, the voice of Nihlus-in-the-void of their time apart, but also the voice of Nihlus-the-child always hungering for things, so many shiny things, always worth more than the meagre amount of his _soul_. He’s fucking into Saren at a brutal pace now, his own lubrication barely enough not to hurt himself. Saren’s_ toying with you,_ clawing at his tangled heartstrings as if to pull them apart, to set them free, then simply snipping them with that insufferable smirk of his. Saren only means to _hurt you_, to slice him open just to observe his inner workings with morbid curiousity. Saren is pliant beneath him to _break you _with this facade of softness, like a merciless flood slipping into all his cracks and structural weaknesses before washing the whole of him away, but _oh, oh, you can break back_, the voice screams, and it doesn’t stop screaming, _it keeps screaming, keeps chanting oh please spirits shut up shut up shut up now_ and Nihlus thrusts harder and faster and _it burns_. Saren just lies there and takes it. Quietly.

This fucked up mess they’ve made each other into– This sparring match to the death concealed as a slow dance, a mockery of a lovers’ embrace, this– This is how it always goes, how it has always been. Nihlus wouldn’t - doesn’t know if he could - have it any other way. Saren is a brutalist sculpture of too many nuts and bolts, none fitting into each other, none filling in the heavy lidded voids, all of them somehow clasped together, holding on notch to sharpened chisel, all for lack of knowing any other thing they could ever hold on to. Ignoble metals scorched and molten and stuck with once-gaping scars now melding bridges to bypass failing circuitry. They warm up at the touch of his hand, but do not hold on to that warmth.

Saren is a cathedral. All spiralling spires and shimmering statuettes, gargoyles with stone jaws tightly clenched, won’t let a single droplet drip,  _ hush, hold on, _ not one single little secret may spill. All would come tumbling down and never cease falling. The dam caves in, in moments like this, the flood gates break open. Quiet, dignified, like canyons concealing waterfalls in their midst. Nihlus may step in now. He may bask in the dusty glow of stained glass depictions of people he cannot put a face to, of places he cannot hear the rain fall through. They used to be boarded up, once at the dawn of time, in the beginning of their intertwined days.  _ So many, too few _ . Specks of sunlight slip through them now, and yet Nihlus cannot walk any closer, can barely spot the silhouette of the altar. He may reach out with his hand, but the fading colours pulse for a brief blink then flinch and tremble and fall back, away, always away from his grasp. Their tentative dance back comes sooner with each carefully measured attempt, but Nihlus rarely tries anymore. He does not want to scare them. He’ll let them come to him.

Around him the crannies and columns curl in, crumbs of mosaic once bright blue and bone white and quicksilver shake in radiating circles around his bare feet. He is always bare, within the sanctuary, soft and wary with every breath that he may slip or spin too swiftly and scratch the precious surfaces beyond salvation. The stone swirls in ever closer, and somewhere at the back of his mind he  _ knows _ they only mean to keep him safe. Yet Nihlus feels as if he is suffocating.

The alcoves of worship, for the innumerable saints of this and that, of growled  _ stay aways _ and softly trilled  _ don’t gos _ , sit on raised marble platforms surrounded with silver trim too long gone unpolished. There are no steps to lead him into their ribcages. Nihlus cannot tell if there ever have been. Pitiful martyrs follow with bejeweled eyes as he moves through the winding halls, a silent warning to cease his approach. They too only wish to keep him safe. Nihlus carries on.

As with every house of spirits he’s ever been within, the thrums in his chest are underwhelming and overwhelming all at once. There is splendour here however jaded, countless shining trinkets Nihlus wants to tuck away and take away, in his mouth, in his belly, lodged deep underneath the hardest of his plates. They sound and smell of Saren, and Nihlus must collect every last piece. Yet there is also anger, and hurt and betrayal, his or the marble walls’ he cannot quite decide, all shaped into a black hole he keeps feeding with discomfort and discontent. This is not a safehouse for his suffering, momentarily forgotten at the gates. No; this is a safehouse for the treasures and fortunes of deities beckoning him to kneel and give selflessly all of his unexplainable devotion - but it’s not, is it, Nihlus?  _ Unexplainable _ -, like the phantom of a pilgrim abandoned at the foot of a mountain he only made up to decorate his empty mind. It’s pathetic. Ornate sewers like this, Nihlus thinks, they never give enough in return for all that was taken. _ They never meant to, you stupid, stupid fool. _

“— Nihlus?”

Ah, and there he is, the spirit himself. Not mighty and golden but shaking and uncertain, not draped in precious silks but drenched in sweat and wearing Nihlus’ pelt like a painful crusade trophy. One he is sure he did not earn,  _ does not deserve _ , not when he only plunders homes already left open for him.

“Shit– Sorry.”

It’s easy to get lost in thought, when they lie like this, Nihlus buried so deep within Saren he cannot hear the funeral bells. How long has it been? Moments, minutes?  _ Hours? _

“If you won’t get on with it, I’ll just…” Saren huffs, makes to move away, away from his grasp–

“No, wait– I’m sorry.”

–falters.

Spirits,  _ those eyes _ . They corner him and Nihlus is suffocating again, drowning in endless descent, half expecting the flood to burst in through sky tinted glass.  _ Careful, careful, if you get lost again he is lost to you _ .

“I just–” He inhales. “I was thinking.”

“Eloquent as always, Nihlus, I see.”  _ Can’t imagine any coherent thought passing through that scum worthless backwater colonist brain of– _

He needs to escape those eyes. Unsteadily Nihlus scrambles for anything, anything at all to fix his gaze on. He finds it sooner than he expected, and it’s not what he wanted, it’s nothing at all like what he wanted. Across Saren’s throat ugly bruises bloom in threes, like watercolour blotches impatiently smudged, fluid pigment pulled from its slumber too early, too soon– Spirits, did he– did  _ he _ do that? There it is, the voice of Nihlus-the-child, shaky now. Oh, he always dreamed of leaving his sticky fingerprints all over the shiny things,  _ his _ shiny things, but not like this. Spirits,  _ not like this. _

_ Forget the flood, the shards are sharp enough to slit his throat. _

Saren’s dissatisfaction is evident. He’s slid back into his plates - did he even emerge? Nihlus hadn’t stopped to look -, muscular thighs tense and gripping his hips hard enough to hurt, filling in spaces inbetween their bodies that are just not there.  _ Not to pull him in, but to lock him out _ .

Belatedly Nihlus realises he’s been pinning Saren down, one hand at his waist, one hand on his chest. He scurries to remove them and Saren  _ whines _ , sharp white fingers curling in around his own to keep his hands in place. It’s not a warning.  _ It’s a plea: don’t go, please don’t go _ . He pulls out and Saren trembles in pain.

For how long has Nihlus been hurting him? How many times has he taken, taken,  _ taken _ , playing the game only so that he may win, going to war instead of coming home?  _ Because that’s what it is, Nihlus, you dumb fuck, that’s what this all is, and you spent so long painting up those portraits of scornful martyrs in your head you didn’t even stop to ask yourself who they are! But what can you expect, what kind of coherent thought do you expect from that scum worthless backwater colonist brain of– _

_ –mine? _

Mine.

Nihlus shivers. He’s moved away, his hands in Saren’s hands their only connection. Nihlus can’t tell what Saren’s eyes struggle to say, but he thinks he sees specks of coloured light.  _ He can’t possibly want this, you sick fuck,  _ but Saren does, Saren just lies there and gives. Quietly.

Nihlus acquiesces with an uncertain flick of his mandible,  _ so much guilt _ , and drags his suddenly too heavy body down, low, lower, until he’s kneeling between Saren’s legs and his mouth is level with his pubic plates. Tentatively he licks a stripe down the closed seam, then another, slow and steady and  _ soft _ , and Saren squirms beneath him and opens his legs that little bit more. He tugs at his hands and Nihlus takes the hint, splaying out shaky fingers to caress the soft flesh of his abdomen. Saren trills. It’s barely there. Most would’ve dismissed the sound as just blood rushing through their ears, but Nihlus knows how to listen.

He keeps listening, and keeps worshipping, mouth and hands and eyes and  _ soul _ , and as Saren’s plates finally spread open and Nihlus can feel the moisture on his face he purrs, victorious, and dips his tongue inside Saren.

He tastes blood.

He recoils as if struck by lightning but Saren’s hands pull him back in, closer,  _ desperate _ ,  _ don’t go, _ and Nihlus’ kisses up his abdomen and chest and neck are a confused skirmish, a paranoid and homesick soldier turning arms on his disguised brethren. He’s so  _ ashamed _ the voice of Nihlus-the-child has run away to hide in some dark alcove impossible to reach.

“I’m sorry, I’m so,  _ so  _ sorry,” Nihlus mutters inbetween the kisses, one on his left mandible, two at the seam of his lip plates, another on the tip of his crooked nose, then back down to his lips and finally to the other mandible.  _ A prayer. _ He risks a glance up at those stained glass eyes, expecting them to shatter - to shatter  _ him _ -, but Saren simply unfolds and refolds himself around Nihlus, pulls him in closer, tighter–

“Shut up and finish fucking me already.”

_ Spirits _ . Nihlus hates himself, but he can’t say no, he can never say no.

There’s a flash of white light and he’s back in the cathedral and nothing has changed. Not at first, at least; Nihlus takes stock of all the little gestures of care he’s never paid any mind to before: a shattered mosaic puzzled back together and a dusty chalice polished back to shine and a fresh bouquet of dandelions at the foot of  _ that _ chamber– all these gifts, all these tender offerings to the sanctuary. Not given in worship or demand, but in–

How long has it been, he wonders again.  _ Years _ , the voice of Nihlus-in-the-void helpfully supplies. Years and years since you’ve been fighting to put this place back together then tearing it back down whenever you couldn’t shape it how you wanted. Where have all those shiny things you’ve stolen gone?  _ Where are they, Nihlus? _

But it fought me back,  _ it fought me back,  _ pulling and pushing like a bloody tug of war. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t want it like  _ this _ .

He strides purposefully past the marble arches - they don’t strangle him -, crashes straight through the stained glass - there is no flood bursting through to drown him -, hurls himself up onto that untouchable altar and for once it doesn’t pull away, the platform doesn’t r a ise higher and higher above his head, doesn’t squash him like a meaningless beetle. With one last push of shaky arms he is standing, ready to take in the divine sight withheld for far too long.

There is no divinity.

Nihlus blinks.  _ Stupid, stupid fool. What did you expect? _ There’s a few old capes with holes torn through several folded layers (a bullet, a bloodied talon,  _ teeth _ ). There’s a little box of jewellery, he doesn’t want to plunder it. Some more mosaics in muted blues and whites and silver, beautiful, but not otherworldly, not worth his agonising crawl into this metaphorical heaven.  _ I don’t want it _ , he remembers.  _ I never did _ . He’s about to hop off the platform and away from the accursed place when he spots it, tucked safely away below the altar in brilliant white silks: a black widow.  _ His _ old black widow, the one he stole from a higher up right before he got unceremoniously kicked out of his unit (again), with the scope mod he paid a whole year’s stipends for, with the tacky red streaks adorning its body that he used to love so much. The soft glint of past fingertips indicates the thing has been meticulously taken apart, studied, assessed, lovingly put back together once the ghost-hands were certain there were no clips or functional capacitors left in it. Certain it would not fire. It looks so misplaced and silly just sitting here, amongst all of… this, all of these blessed things his mind conjured. Nihlus can’t help but laugh. The damn thing’s gathering dust in some corner of the ship, long out of use. Possibly the cupboard. He doesn’t want to think about it. He doesn’t want to think about  _ those _ days.

Absently he thinks the choirs should start singing right about now. He has a full repertoire of rude gestures to throw their way. He’s done worshipping. That’s not the devotion he was offered. He takes a deep breath and can almost hear the choirs mirroring, ready to-

_ “N-Nihlus!” _

He snaps back to the present, to the physical, to wet warmth enveloping his whole being. He’s sure he’s heard himself scream too, scream something, not Saren’s name, some sweet nothing– and he is lost again,  _ but not lost _ . Saren is truly beautiful in these moments,  _ so beautiful,  _ dull plates and crooked teeth and too thin shoulders and faintly glowing amps and all, when he lets go and holds tight and  _ spirits _ , offers his throat and his trust and his–

_ If only you hadn’t been so caught up in seeking some false redemption. _

Saren is shaking and singing and it’s enough, it’s more than enough, to pull him too over the edge, mouth gently holding onto Saren’s throat. He could swear Saren is purring.

They lie in silence afterwards, basking in the afterglow, in the hopeful driftwood after the storm. At last Saren tugs softly on his fringe and he raises his head for their eyes to meet.

“Where did you go?”

“What?” Nihlus blurts out.  _ Ah yes, eloquent. _

Saren actually smiles. It’s small, but it’s there.

“You got lost for a while.” In these rare moments Saren’s voice is quiet and soft.

“Ah. I was just–”  _ Just what? Stealing from you? Crashing in through your back window while you were waiting at the door, all ‘cause you never told me you would?  _ “–contemplating… religion.”

Saren snorts.

“You’re an atheist.”

It’s playful. It doesn’t mock. It doesn’t accuse.

Nihlus presses his brow plates even closer to Saren’s ( _ stop that, any closer and you’ll get in my head _ ) and nuzzles, chirps affectionately.

“Yeah, yeah, I am.” He laughs.

Saren is silent for a few moments more, then whispers, almost not there,

“— me too,  _ Nihlus _ .”

Nihlus doesn’t think he meant his lack of belief in deities.

  
  



End file.
